The Nile.
But the Nile itself was, after all, the chief source or cause of the wealth of Egypt. Although the only river in the world which has during so long a course so few tributaries of any magnitude, it has, or rather had, several mouths, and these, with various canals, were the principal high roads for Egyptian traffic. The external character of the greatest of these canals (the Bahr-Jusuf, or “River of Joseph”), which runs parallel with the Nile on its western side from a little below Cairo for three hundred and fifty miles, though now no longer navigable, rendered it, up to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the most important work of the kind in Egypt. Nor were there wanting canals which received the surplus of the inundations of the great river.
Sailors of Egypt.
The sailors of Egypt—a numerous class—were chiefly boatmen employed on the Nile and the canals—bargemen rather than seamen. So vast, however, was the trade on this river that, according to Herodotus, no fewer than seven hundred thousand sailors (persons, we must presume) assembled on board different vessels on the occasion of one of the principal festivals;[159] while, then as now, during the periodical inundations, a large portion of the population were compelled to live in boats and barges, where fairs and markets were also held, giving fresh impulse to trade and navigation.
Their boats.
How navigated.
Herodotus has furnished an interesting description of how the Egyptian boats and barges were built. From the acantha[160] tree the Egyptians cut planks about two cubits in length, arranging them like bricks. “They attach them,”[161] he adds, “to a number of long poles till the hull is complete, when they lay the cross planks on the top from side to side. They make no use of ribs, but caulk the seams with the papyrus; they make only one rudder, and that is driven through the keel. They use a mast of acantha and sails of papyrus. These vessels are unable to sail up the stream unless they have a brisk breeze, but are towed from the shore. They are thus carried down the stream. There is to each a raft made of tamarisk, wattled with a band of reeds, and a stone, bored through the middle, of about two talents[162] in weight; the raft is fastened to the vessel by a cable, and allowed to float down in front, while the stone is held by another cable at the stern; by this means the raft, by the stream bearing hard upon it, moves quickly, and draws along the ‘baris’ (for this is the name given to these vessels); but the stone being dragged at the stern, and sunk to the bottom, keeps the vessel straight. They have very many of these vessels, and some of them carry many thousand talents.”
Mode of building them.
The following drawing, taken from Champollion’s “Description de l’Egypte,” furnishes monumental proof of the accuracy of Herodotus, in his description of their construction.[163]
Men may be seen building a boat, much resembling a modern barge, with a high poop, and a long bow, apparently binding bands of papyrus round the boards, while others are bringing, on their backs, baskets filled with reeds, to be twisted into similar bands. But the larger vessels must have been fastened together (though Herodotus does not mention this) by either metal bolts, or trenails.